Trying to Make Sense of WWE’s Recent Booking of Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens seemed like a surefire “can’t miss” talent upon his arrival to the WWE main roster in 2015. But recent storylines on Raw have made Owens and how he’s used a mystery to many.
We are two years removed from Triple H handing the Universal Championship to Kevin Owens after stabbing his former protege Seth Rollins in the back. Since then, Owens had a mostly lackluster run on SmackDown Live, where he spent most of his time feuding with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan.
But at least Owens was relevant, and he and his best friend Sami Zayn –who’s currently out with an injury — were at the top of the SDLive roster, constantly in the main event. Fast forward to 2018, and it doesn’t seem WWE knows what they are doing with one of their most talented in-ring performers.
Two weeks ago on Raw, following an instant classic match against Seth Rollins for the Intercontinental Championship, Kevin Owens was sitting in the middle of the ring after Raw came back from a commercial break. Mic in hand, he told the live crowd, and everyone watching at home, that he “quit.”
This, of course, led to a lot of speculation from the IWC about what was actually going on. Did Owens actually quit? Was it all a work?
Well, on this week’s Raw we got our answer. In a segment that started off really strangely, Bobby Lashley joined Jinder Mahal in the ring for a “moment of meditation.” Bobby Lashley didn’t really take to the idea throughout the segment, constantly making weird faces, and even messing with Sunil Singh.
That’s when things really went off track. Everyone expected Lashley to jump Mahal, or maybe even the other way around, possibly setting up a feud between the two. What we got instead left everyone scratching their heads.
All of a sudden the crowd began to cheer and react to something happening behind Lashley and Mahal — and Kevin Owens ran through the crowd and into the ring, to attack Bobby Lashley. Owens would eventually hit a superkick on Lashley, and then drag him out of the ring, and hit the apron powerbomb. (You know, the same move that kayfabe put Sami Zayn on the shelf in 2015.) Owens then walked to the back, and fans were left wondering what was going on with “The Prizefighter.”
As far as storyline goes, this move does make some sense. According to WWE, Kevin Owens’s best friend Sami Zayn was injured in a match against Bobby Lashley. There is a logical reason Owens to attack Lashley. He can enter into a feud and try to avenge his fallen friend.
But, if this was WWE’s plan all along, why have Owens “quit” the week before? He wasn’t off television long enough to actually make fans wonder if he was actually gone from the company. Sure, WWE moved Owens to their Alumni page, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot when he shows back up the following week.
One of the oddest parts about the whole thing is Owens wasn’t even reprimanded for the attack. In a show where we had already seen The Shield get arrested for jumping Strowman, McIntyre, and Ziggler in the opening segment, nothing happened to Owens. And The Shield is under contract with WWE; if Owens had really quit, for all intents and purposes he was not. He didn’t even get talked to by “Acting GM” Baron Corbin.
Instead, after the Shield somehow made bail in under two hours on Labor Day, those Detroit judges must owe Vince, and drove a police van into the arena while Strowman, McIntyre, and Ziggler were beating up Finn Balor, Kevin Owens was seen leading the attack on The Shield.
Once again, it’s like WWE has disregarded the storylines they created. With absolutely no explanation it’s like Kevin Owens is a regular part of the Raw roster again. Couldn’t anyone else have led the charge? AOP, Jinder Mahal, or even Mojo Rawley in this instance all would have been better choices. But, no, let’s have the guy who quit just last week, lead the charge.
More from Daily DDT
- It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
- Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
- Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
- Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
- Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline
At very least, have the commentary team actually relay information to the audience at home. It’s not difficult to have Michael Cole say that he just received word from Acting GM Baron Corbin that Owens was reinstated, effective immediately. Little things like showing your work goes a long way to building cohesive storylines.
Either WWE forgot they were going to have Owens this heavily involved in all of their storylines, or they decided last minute, two weeks ago, to have KO quit, and didn’t change anything else. Whatever the case, it’s not a good look for WWE and has left many fans confused.
We’re talking about a guy here, who is without a doubt top ten in WWE in terms of in-ring ability and mic skills. The fact that WWE has placed someone of his talents in such a strange place story-wise is baffling. As he showed in his storylines with Shane McMahon if you just give him a little instruction, and something to work with, he will knock it out of the park every time. He knows how to make fans believe, and knows how to get under their skin as a heel.
25 Best Intercontinental Championship Matches. dark. Next
With the Universal Championship back on Raw every week, and with the feud with Strowman hopefully drawing to a close after Hell in a Cell, maybe Owens will get his shot at the Universal Championship soon, and hopefully he will be returned to his rightful spot at the top of the Raw roster, always a threat to take the title off of “The Big Dog,” because that is where Kevin Owens belongs.